Layover, not get on connecting flight
 

I found some great prices on tickets to Paris. We have a layover in London coming and going. We want to include time in London in our itinerary. What would happen if we didn't get on the connecting flight to Paris and just stayed in London a few days, then took train to France? I don't want to cause am international incident,just want to efficiently acheive our travel goals.

I think you risk the rest of your itinerary being cancelled.

You wouldn't cause an 'incident' . . . But the airline will cancel your return flight home. Plus if you check luggage it will go on to Paris without you. VERY bad idea.

Your return flight would be cancelled. Read the terms and conditions and all the small print.
People used to do this a lot to take advantage of cheaper flights, but airlines soon caught on and put a stop to it.

To avoid having the "rest of your flights cancelled" you have to book what is known as an "open jaw" itinerary - Flight #1 Home airport to London, Flight #2 London to Paris, Flight #3 Paris to Home. It will probably cost more than a R/T ticket for a flight from Home to Paris that has a layover in London.

You don't need flight #2, just book to fly into London and home from Paris. get the train between London and Paris.

Yes, a very simple open jaw home > London, Paris > home

Or vice versa . . .

I also wondered what the point of this itinerary was. If it's an airline that flies through London, I presume it may be BA. It is certainly not Air France. So why would it be cheaper to book Paris RT than just into London and out of Paris.

You can only do this type of thing if the return flight is on a separate itinerary and you don't check bags.

Christina: who knows the logic behind pricing, sometimes it just seems like fares come out of a random number generator.

I think BA allows stopovers on trips. So you could stop over in London for a couple days, then fly on to Paris, all for the same price. Whereas the Eurostar train will be an extra charge.

It sounds as if the OP <B>has already booked this itinerary</B> "we have a layover coming and going;" and "what would happen if..."

Maybe we'll get really luck and they'll respond.

If they stop over who knows what the resultant price might be? It could be more; it could be less. Who knows what any of the prices might be?

If they have already booked, then they can't book a stopover, and so they can't not take the flight to Paris.

We agree that it'd be an expensive mistake to not go on to Paris. From Paris, taking the Eurostar RT for however many days they want to spend in London, with some decent deals on the train ticket if booked as far ahead as possible, seems to me a good compromise.

I also see, from where I live, a round trip fare to CDG is just insanely cheap right now. It is less than what I paid more than 20 years ago! Round trip to LHR is whopping $500 per person more than RT to CDG for me. So, if I am in OP's position, I would keep the RT ticket to CDG as is and easily and trivially and cheaply and safely do RT to London on Eurostar and still comes way ahead cost wise if not time wise. I can guess why airfare to CDG is so cheap. When I talk to people around me in the U.S., they are absolutely not going to France thinking it is a hot bed of terrorism by listening only to you know who and watching only to you know which TV station.

For those who don't know, often connecting flights are cheaper than direct flights because they are less convenient. For example NYC to CDG on AF might cost $800 but via LON or AMS on BA or KL, you might find it for only $650. But in the case of fares like that, <b>it is absolutely forbidden to stop</b> in the transit city.

Expanding on Kerouc, this is a consequence of the market based pricing. Many people seems to be unfamiliar to the market based airline pricing that took place around the world, starting in 1978 in the U.S.

start-LHR-start is one market.
start-CDG-start is a different market with different competition and different pricing.

The fact that start-CDG-start = start-(LHR)-CDG-(LHR)-start, start-(AMS)-CDG-(AMS)-start, etc. is done at carrier's competitive needs, not yours. They have no intention of offering start-LHR-start equivalent at the same price as start-CDG-start.

The way OP is proposing is a "Hidden-city" booking. Soon after the deregulation, airlines realized people were doing this, so they put a kibosh to it, at least in the fare rules. Some people "may" get away with it on one-way trip on an airline they would not used again where there is no future consequences, but not for a round trip. They can still go after these passengers.

I have used this concept, but within the fare rule. I thinker with the short layover to extend the layover as close to 24 hours as possible. Beyond 24 hours, it seems the layover become insanely expensive stopovers. I have stayed many times in Frankfurt and Amsterdam as 20-23hr layover without adding any cost to the start-(AMS)-somewhere-(AMS)-start kind of ticket price. Of course, I only book accommodation with the same day cancellation as the airlines are allowed to yank out these AMS,FRA, etc. hidden cities at the last minutes.

Even with the booking engines we have now, airline pricing can sometimes be surprising. Brussel - London - USA is cheaper, sometimes much cheaper, than Brussel - USA.
It so happened that one of our party last year was already in London, so wanted to cancel the Brussel-London part; that would have resulted in cancellation of the entire round trip to LA - so he had to take a flight to Brussel in order to board the Brussel - London flight.

Sorry, meant to say cheaper than London - USA.

Thanks for all the info. Yes, i already booked it. I will probably ask the airline- never hurts. Likely we will just have to take the train to London and back.